Yasmina Khadra - What the day owes the nigth

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What if things don’t work out in Río Salado?’

‘Then we’ll move to Tlemcen, or to Sidi Bel Abbès, or out into the Sahara. God’s earth is vast, Germaine, or have you forgotten?’

Somewhere it was written that I was born to leave my home, to constantly leave, each time leaving a part of me behind.

Lucette stood in the doorway of her house, hands behind her back, leaning against the wall. She refused to believe me when I told her we were moving away. Now, seeing the truck arrive, she was upset with me. I couldn’t bring myself to cross the street and tell her that I was upset too. I simply stood and watched the movers load our furniture and our trunks into the truck. It was as though they were taking my whole world to pieces.

Germaine helped me up into the cab. The truck roared. I leaned out to look back at Lucette, hoping she might wave; she kept her hands behind her back. It was as though she didn’t believe I was really leaving, or perhaps she simply refused to accept it.

As the truck pulled away, the driver blocked my view of Lucette, so I craned my neck in the hope of taking with me the glimmer of a smile, some sign that she realised that this was not my fault, that I was as devastated as she was. But nothing . . . The street flashed by in a roar of metal and then disappeared.

Goodbye, Lucette.

For a long time I thought it had been her eyes that filled my soul with a gentle peace. Now I know that it was not simply her eyes, it was the way she looked at me – the gentle, caring, maternal expression of a girl not yet a woman . . .

Río Salado was only sixty kilometres west of Oran, but this journey was the longest I have ever known. The truck coughed and spluttered like a camel on its last legs, the engine stalling every time the driver changed gears. He wore trousers spattered with oil and grease, and his shirt had seen better days. He was a short, stocky man with broad shoulders and a face like a veteran boxer. He drove in silence, his hairy hands like tarantulas gripping the steering wheel. Her face pressed to the window, Germaine said nothing, but stared out at the orange groves that lined the road. Her hands were clasped, half hidden in her lap; I realised that she was praying.

We had to slow to a crawl as we drove through the village of Misserghin. It was market day and the road was lined with carts and stalls; housewives bustled about, and here and there were Bedouins – recognisable from their turbans – offering their services as porters. A policeman strutted around the town square, twirling his truncheon lazily. His kepi pulled down over his eyes, he greeted the women respectfully as he passed, turning back afterwards to catch a glimpse of their behinds.

‘My names is Costa.’ The driver spoke suddenly. ‘Coco to my friends.’

He shot Germaine a glance and, seeing her smile politely, went on:

‘I’m Greek.’

He shifted in his seat.

‘I own a half-share in this truck. I might not look like a rich man, but it’s true. Soon I’ll be my own boss and I will never have to leave my office. The men in the back, they are Italian. They can unload a steamship in half a day. They have been hauliers since they were in their mother’s womb.’

His big eyes, set in rolls of fat, twinkled now.

‘You know, madame, you look just like my cousin Mélina. When we arrived this morning, I thought I was seeing things. It’s incredible how much you look like her. You have the same hair, the same eyes, you are the same height. I don’t suppose you’re Greek, madame?

‘No, monsieur.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘From Oran. Fourth generation.’

‘Really? Perhaps one of your ancestors crossed swords with the patron saint of Arabs. Me, I have only been in Algeria fifteen years. I was a sailor, we put into port here, and it was here I met Berthe in a funduq. The moment I set eyes on her, I thought, this is where I will stay. I married Berthe and we settled in La Scalera. Oran is a beautiful city.’

‘It is,’ Germaine said sadly. ‘A very beautiful city.’

The driver swerved to avoid two donkeys standing in the middle of the road. The furniture in the back of the truck groaned and the Italian movers swore loudly in their own language.

The driver straightened up the truck and accelerated hard enough to blow a gasket.

‘Cut your chatter and keep your eyes on the road, Coco,’ one of the Italians yelled.

The driver nodded and fell silent.

A lush landscape flashed past, orange groves and vineyards jostling for space across the plains and the hills. Here and there, on rocky outcrops overlooking the scrubland, were beautiful farmhouses, ringed by majestic trees and lavish gardens, the driveways leading to them lined with olive trees and willowy palms. Every now and then we would see a colonial farmer walking his fields, or on horseback, galloping flat out towards some unseen joy. Then, without warning, like a pockmark in this fairytale landscape, we would see some squalid shack, crushed by the weight of poverty and the evil eye. Some of these shacks, out of a sense of decency, were hidden behind screens of tall cacti – all we could see was the ramshackle roof, which looked about to collapse on the people below; others clung to the rocky hillsides, their doorways ugly as a toothless smile, their cob walls pale and pitted as a death mask.

The driver turned to Germaine again and said:

‘It’s incredible how much you look like my cousin Mélina.’

I LOVE Río Salado – the place the Romans called Fulmen Salsum and one we now call El Malah. I have loved this town all my life; I cannot imagine growing old beneath any other sky, cannot imagine dying far from these ghosts. It was a beautiful colonial village with leafy streets lined with magnificent houses. The main square, where dances were held and famous musical troupes came to play, unfurled its flagstone carpet a stone’s throw from the steps of the town hall, flanked by tall palm trees strung together by garlands studded with Chinese lanterns. The great jazz musician Aimé Barelli performed here, and bandleader Xavier Cugat with his famous chihuahua, as well as Jacques Hélian and Pérez Prado. The town attracted artists and orchestras that even Oran, for all its charm and its standing as the capital of the West, could not afford. Río Salado liked to flaunt its wealth, to avenge itself on all those who for years had written it off. The ostentatious mansions that lined the main street were the town’s way of telling passers-by that ostentation was a virtue if it meant refuting others’ preconceptions, if it meant enduring every hardship in order to catch the moon. The land here had once been a stony wilderness left to lizards, the only human soul a shepherd passing, never to return; it was a landscape of scrubland and dry riverbeds, the domain of boars and hyenas – a land forgotten by men and angels. Those pilgrims who passed this way raced through like gusts of wind as though it were a cursed cemetery. Later, exiles and nomads, Spaniards mostly, laid claim to this desolate land, which mirrored their suffering. These men rolled up their sleeves and set about taming this savage landscape. They uprooted the mastic trees and replaced them with vineyards, ploughed and hoed the wasteland to create farms, and from their Herculean efforts Río Salado blossomed, as green shoots grew over mass graves.

Nestled amid hundreds of vineyards and wine cellars, Río Salado was a town to be savoured, like one of its own vintages. Though there were chill January days when the sky was streaked with snow, the town had an aura of perpetual summer about it. The contented inhabitants went joyfully about their business, coming together at sunset to share a drink or some piece of scandal or gossip. Their braying laughter or their righteous anger could be heard for miles around.